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| Tanya and Olga |
Saturday, May 14, 2011
History
Thursday Tanya and I had supper with another school friend, Olga Bengert. Her family were Volga Germans. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin rounded up all those of German ancestry as he considered them dangerous collaborators, and shipped them in cattle cars to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Some of them, including Olga's family ended up in Abakan. Her grandfather was sent to a labour camp near Lake Baikal to cut timber. He never returned and they have no idea where he died or is buried
I grew up on the east edge of St. Joseph's Colony in west-central Saskatchewan which was settled in 1906 by Volga Germans and other German and German/Polish Catholics. I went to high school in Leipzig and there was a Bengert family in the community as there was a girl in my younger brother's grade. It would be interesting to know how or if there was any connection or how many other familiar names there are here in Khakasia.
Saturday Afternoon at the Park
What does a well-dressed mother of a two year old wear to the park in Abakan on a Saturday afternoon, you ask? Well, I have the answer here.
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| Очен хорошо! |
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Friends and Family
It has been rainy and cold so we have not done any driving around the country this time. We are here to visit friends and family anyhow. And there are enough of them within a short distance of Belii Yar that it is not a problem to find people to visit. Keeping relationships straight is a challenge as all cousins are referred to as “my brother” or “my sister”, which is nice in a way as it signifies the closeness of families. Tanya is learning for my benefit to say “my cousin” or my second cousin” just so I can figure who is who and how everyone is related.
Thursday last we visited friends of Tanya’s, Pyotr and Natalie, that she had not seen for 15 years. Pyotr was the director of a state farm where Tanya worked for a year after she graduated from University. Pyotr, his son and another man have a 250 sow-farrow to finish pig operation. They slaughter market weight pigs and sell frozen sides of pork. They are renovating rented facilities and building new barns too. Expansion is difficult as they cannot access large loans easily and have to compete with giant corporations which are wired in solidly to the establishment.
Saturday we had supper with our friends Sergei and his wife Tanya. They are in their early 30’s and have two young sons. We have known them since I was first in Abakan in 2006. Sergei was our tour guide and translator for several days when we met with agriculture officials in a number of centres. Both speak fluent English. Sergei did a master’s degree in Boston some years back. He has an English school in Abakan called The Boston Club with seven levels of instruction taking up to 3½ years. It is swamped with students and they do not dare advertise even though he has several staff.
Sunday I met one of Tanya’s second cousins on her mother’s side of the family. Tanya and Elena have been best friends since they found themselves in the same classroom in Grade 5. Elena’s father and mother are in good health though he is 90 and she 86. Her father is a much decorated war hero, having fought the Japanese in 1938 and the Germans from ‘41 to ‘45. Elena is very happily remarried three years ago to the now retired chief of police of the Raion of Askis or Askiz (pronounced exactly like you think it is, much to the merriment of English speakers).
Viktor was showing me books about the 90 year history of Askis and the militsia as police are called in Russian. There are 150 (should be 200 at full strength) police for 50,000 residents of Askis Raion and 2500 police for about 550,000 people in all of Khakasia (62,000 sq km). That is roughly one policeman for each 200-250 people. There were pictures of them marching carrying fully automatic assault rifles. As one defines crime, so one defines crime prevention, I guess.
Monday, I met another second cousin, this time from Tanya’s father’s side. Luda is a Doctor of Psychology, retired from the university but working with a newly established centre for children who are mentally challenged (right term?). All of the old support institutions collapsed with the end of the FSU and are just now being reestablished. Her husband works in advertising. The four of us went over visit her aunt, Papa’s cousin Tonya, whom I had met two years ago. Tonya's youngest daughter, Valya, husband and two sons were there so I met some more family. They were there working on garden and installing indoor plumbing for Tonya.
Tanya's second cousin Valya is the slimmest, trimmest mature woman I have seen in Siberia. I asked my Tanya if Valya really was a “Sibirochka”. Why? Well she isn’t T H I S wide. Smack! Deserved but worth it.
Thursday last we visited friends of Tanya’s, Pyotr and Natalie, that she had not seen for 15 years. Pyotr was the director of a state farm where Tanya worked for a year after she graduated from University. Pyotr, his son and another man have a 250 sow-farrow to finish pig operation. They slaughter market weight pigs and sell frozen sides of pork. They are renovating rented facilities and building new barns too. Expansion is difficult as they cannot access large loans easily and have to compete with giant corporations which are wired in solidly to the establishment.
Saturday we had supper with our friends Sergei and his wife Tanya. They are in their early 30’s and have two young sons. We have known them since I was first in Abakan in 2006. Sergei was our tour guide and translator for several days when we met with agriculture officials in a number of centres. Both speak fluent English. Sergei did a master’s degree in Boston some years back. He has an English school in Abakan called The Boston Club with seven levels of instruction taking up to 3½ years. It is swamped with students and they do not dare advertise even though he has several staff.
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| Tanya, Sergei and Al |
Viktor was showing me books about the 90 year history of Askis and the militsia as police are called in Russian. There are 150 (should be 200 at full strength) police for 50,000 residents of Askis Raion and 2500 police for about 550,000 people in all of Khakasia (62,000 sq km). That is roughly one policeman for each 200-250 people. There were pictures of them marching carrying fully automatic assault rifles. As one defines crime, so one defines crime prevention, I guess.
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| Tanya and Elena |
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| Tanya and Tonya |
Monday, May 9, 2011
Time Zones
Visiting in Siberia has made it easier to talk to my kids on Skype because of the time difference. We are 14 hours ahead of Saskatchewan and Alberta and 15 hours ahead of BC. I can get up in the morning and call them on Skype at home at night.
Disregarding Daylight Savings Time, Abakan is GMT+7 hours and Regina is GMT-7 hours, which should put them at or near meridians 105 E and 105 W respectively, roughly equidistant from London. Except they are not. I looked it up on MapCrow (though there are several other distance calculators) and Regina (6636) is 900 kms farther from London than Abakan (5735).
The map below explains the situation. Click on it and you can read it easily as the jpg is 5 MB. It shows the meridians and their assigned time zones. The actual time zones of various geographic regions are colour coded so you can see where they match the assigned time zones and where they do not.
Most of Russia seems to be one time zone farther east than it actually is geographically. Abakan and Krasnoyarsk should be GMT+ 6, not GMT+7. People who have difficulty with DST should try sorting out the time zones of Asia. China for example covers 4 time zones but sets one time zone (Beijing time) for the country because, as I was told, several time zones is too complicated to understand. OK...
Disregarding Daylight Savings Time, Abakan is GMT+7 hours and Regina is GMT-7 hours, which should put them at or near meridians 105 E and 105 W respectively, roughly equidistant from London. Except they are not. I looked it up on MapCrow (though there are several other distance calculators) and Regina (6636) is 900 kms farther from London than Abakan (5735).
The map below explains the situation. Click on it and you can read it easily as the jpg is 5 MB. It shows the meridians and their assigned time zones. The actual time zones of various geographic regions are colour coded so you can see where they match the assigned time zones and where they do not.
Most of Russia seems to be one time zone farther east than it actually is geographically. Abakan and Krasnoyarsk should be GMT+ 6, not GMT+7. People who have difficulty with DST should try sorting out the time zones of Asia. China for example covers 4 time zones but sets one time zone (Beijing time) for the country because, as I was told, several time zones is too complicated to understand. OK...
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Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Living and the Dead
When I was growing up, all my aunts, uncles and cousins, on both sides, lived within an hour’s drive of our place. Tanya’s family was very much the same except lived even closer together. During their working years, a few of the family worked in other parts of the FSU but they all came home when they retired. Consequently, when we come home to visit, we don’t have to travel far to see almost all of the family still living, or visit the graves of the departed.
Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the Orthodox citizens of Russia and Ukraine visit cemeteries to pay their respects to departed loved ones. Before and on those days graves sites are cleaned of grass, weeds and last year’s artificial flowers, fences and so forth painted. On the day of our visit to the two cemeteries here in Belii Yar where members of Tanya’s family are buried, we took new artificial flowers and plastic turf to bring some beauty and colour to a dry prairie landscape.
There were six Tishen sisters; Anna, Yevdokia, Maria (Tanya’s mother) Natalie, Valentina and Vera. Three are gone, buried here in Belii Yar, including Tanya’s Mom who died 10 years ago on March 31. The remaining three sisters are in their late 70’s, early 80’s, old by Russian standards of today. Valya and Vera still live here. When her husband died, Natalie moved to Chelyabinsk to live with her daughter but she wants to come back here to die. Of the six brothers-in-law, Tanya’s Papa is the only one still alive. He will be 80 this summer. Three of the others are buried in Belii Yar.
Of the 11 cousins, four are gone; two including Tanya’s brother Sasha who died of a heart attack three years ago, are buried here. Five including Tanya’s sister Luda still live here. Tanya is the furthest away, then Natalie’s daughter in Chelyabinsk. Yevdokia’s son, Kolya lives in Kyzyl, Tuva , 400 km south through the Cyan mountains. I have met all but Natalie’s daughter. Good people.
The second cousins are beginning to spread out and lose touch of course, but the six sisters and their families were very close knit, possibly because their parents died when they were younger. Tanya may have been five when her grandparents Tishen died; she hardly remembers them. They are buried in the old grave yard in Kalyagino, the nearby village where Tanya grew up that no longer exists. Papa’s brother Victor, who died in his 20’s is buried there also. Vera and her daughter Natalie went out last Sunday to tend to those graves.
Papa’s mother, Tanya’s beloved Babushka, is buried here in Belii Yar. Her husband and his two brothers lie in far flung battlefields of The Great Patriotic War. The locations of the brother’s graves, or at least the places where they were killed, are known but Tanya’s grandfather’s location is not. She had thought Smolensk but has received new information that places his unit in Ukraine so is tracking that down now.
Families are not that close any longer it seems. My kids' cousins are scattered and so are Tanya's boy's cousins. Maybe our generation was the last of the close families?
Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the Orthodox citizens of Russia and Ukraine visit cemeteries to pay their respects to departed loved ones. Before and on those days graves sites are cleaned of grass, weeds and last year’s artificial flowers, fences and so forth painted. On the day of our visit to the two cemeteries here in Belii Yar where members of Tanya’s family are buried, we took new artificial flowers and plastic turf to bring some beauty and colour to a dry prairie landscape.
There were six Tishen sisters; Anna, Yevdokia, Maria (Tanya’s mother) Natalie, Valentina and Vera. Three are gone, buried here in Belii Yar, including Tanya’s Mom who died 10 years ago on March 31. The remaining three sisters are in their late 70’s, early 80’s, old by Russian standards of today. Valya and Vera still live here. When her husband died, Natalie moved to Chelyabinsk to live with her daughter but she wants to come back here to die. Of the six brothers-in-law, Tanya’s Papa is the only one still alive. He will be 80 this summer. Three of the others are buried in Belii Yar.
Of the 11 cousins, four are gone; two including Tanya’s brother Sasha who died of a heart attack three years ago, are buried here. Five including Tanya’s sister Luda still live here. Tanya is the furthest away, then Natalie’s daughter in Chelyabinsk. Yevdokia’s son, Kolya lives in Kyzyl, Tuva , 400 km south through the Cyan mountains. I have met all but Natalie’s daughter. Good people.
The second cousins are beginning to spread out and lose touch of course, but the six sisters and their families were very close knit, possibly because their parents died when they were younger. Tanya may have been five when her grandparents Tishen died; she hardly remembers them. They are buried in the old grave yard in Kalyagino, the nearby village where Tanya grew up that no longer exists. Papa’s brother Victor, who died in his 20’s is buried there also. Vera and her daughter Natalie went out last Sunday to tend to those graves.
Papa’s mother, Tanya’s beloved Babushka, is buried here in Belii Yar. Her husband and his two brothers lie in far flung battlefields of The Great Patriotic War. The locations of the brother’s graves, or at least the places where they were killed, are known but Tanya’s grandfather’s location is not. She had thought Smolensk but has received new information that places his unit in Ukraine so is tracking that down now.
Families are not that close any longer it seems. My kids' cousins are scattered and so are Tanya's boy's cousins. Maybe our generation was the last of the close families?
Friday, May 6, 2011
I said OVIR and OVIR and OVIR again*
We wanted to buy a new SIM card for my mobile phone when we arrived in Abakan so we could make local calls. In Ukraine, you can’t walk down the street without someone trying to sell you a SIM card for a new phone company or a new plan. Not so easy here in the land of the double headed eagle (looking east and west).
Tanya and I could not buy one unless we were registered at the local Department of the Interior Office in the location we were staying. The office was closed Monday and Tuesday. Since Tanya held a passport from a country of the FSU, she doesn’t have to bother registering or even getting a visa. Me, on the other hand…
I described in an earlier post about getting a Russian visa. Since Tanya’s sister is a stay at home mom these past couple of years, Valerie, being gainfully employed, had to go to the local Office of the Interior (OVIR) and fill out the forms to get them to issue a letter of invitation for me. Which took a month. Plus courier time as only an original is valid.
So on my arrival, I have three working days for my presence to be duly noted and my passport stamped by said OVIR office. I didn’t have to go, just my passport. Correction – since Valerie invited me, HE and my passport had to go, as Tanya and Luda were informed when they took my passport in while downtown shopping.
Valerie took my passport to the office at 2:00 pm and had to go back at 6:00 pm to get it as it takes 4 hours to do the requisite paperwork. They gave Valerie an original of some piece of the paperwork of which he has to give me a copy so I can leave the country. (No, they couldn’t make the copy, whatever are you thinking?). And when I leave Valerie has to take his original back to the OVIR office and inform them I am indeed gone.
In the mean time, Luda bought our SIM card using her passport. So I better be good or the whole famn damily will end up in the hoosegow.
*with apologies to The Dave Clark Five
Tanya and I could not buy one unless we were registered at the local Department of the Interior Office in the location we were staying. The office was closed Monday and Tuesday. Since Tanya held a passport from a country of the FSU, she doesn’t have to bother registering or even getting a visa. Me, on the other hand…
I described in an earlier post about getting a Russian visa. Since Tanya’s sister is a stay at home mom these past couple of years, Valerie, being gainfully employed, had to go to the local Office of the Interior (OVIR) and fill out the forms to get them to issue a letter of invitation for me. Which took a month. Plus courier time as only an original is valid.
So on my arrival, I have three working days for my presence to be duly noted and my passport stamped by said OVIR office. I didn’t have to go, just my passport. Correction – since Valerie invited me, HE and my passport had to go, as Tanya and Luda were informed when they took my passport in while downtown shopping.
Valerie took my passport to the office at 2:00 pm and had to go back at 6:00 pm to get it as it takes 4 hours to do the requisite paperwork. They gave Valerie an original of some piece of the paperwork of which he has to give me a copy so I can leave the country. (No, they couldn’t make the copy, whatever are you thinking?). And when I leave Valerie has to take his original back to the OVIR office and inform them I am indeed gone.
In the mean time, Luda bought our SIM card using her passport. So I better be good or the whole famn damily will end up in the hoosegow.
*with apologies to The Dave Clark Five
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Computer and Internet
I figured it was a fair deal. Lyuda and Valerie put in a real bathroom for me so I bought a computer for them. Yesterday was the big day. Of course it has Windows 7 which I had never seen or used and neither had Tanya. We are sticking to XP as long as we can. And it was in Russian so I was truly flying blind when it came to helping. I left it in Tanya's capable hands.
Today we got internet. Sort of high-speed lite which means slow downloads of You Tube videos but low cost for unlimited time and downloads. I sorted down my emails to less than 100 and answered a few, but have had no time to read blogs but will catch up another time.
People are lined up so I have to get off this thing. I can't hook my own computer up to the internet yet but hope to tomorrow, maybe.
For late additions to my readership, if you go to the label Abakan Journey on my blog page you can get a good idea of our previous trips and see some of teh landscape and people.
Today we got internet. Sort of high-speed lite which means slow downloads of You Tube videos but low cost for unlimited time and downloads. I sorted down my emails to less than 100 and answered a few, but have had no time to read blogs but will catch up another time.
People are lined up so I have to get off this thing. I can't hook my own computer up to the internet yet but hope to tomorrow, maybe.
For late additions to my readership, if you go to the label Abakan Journey on my blog page you can get a good idea of our previous trips and see some of teh landscape and people.
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